SO what options did she have in the good old Pre Facebook Agrarian Ages of yore?
They were culled from the burg she lived in and maybe from the next
village over, so that her total population of potential suitors — men
in an acceptable age range, with discernible pulses and a majority of
their limbs — was five if she was lucky, three if the burg had just
emerged from a period of savage smallpox.
And while her eye might be
drawn to the lad with the least rotted teeth, Ma and Pa knew better, not
so much nudging as commanding her toward the one whose family had the
most livestock. They understood that meat, not mirth, would sustain her
and her brood over the harsh winters to come, and that love meant never
having to say you’re hungry.
